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September 03, 2013

Reviewed: Made In America 2013

I had no idea people owned so many American flag-themed clothing items. Fervent patriotism was in full force this past weekend at Made In America, the Philadelphia festival born from a partnership between Jay Z and Budweiser. In its second year, it seemed as if the festival had worked out kinks and had thought of just about everything that could go wrong. It had a killer diverse lineup, a beautiful riverside park for its location, good food, and spot-on branding/advertising thanks to Budweiser. However, there was one large thing keeping this festival from being near-perfect: over-crowding. You know there are too many people in the venue when someone has to wait nearly an hour for an $11 beer. The capacity of the park was 50,000 per day, yet somehow the sold-out festival claimed 60,000 attendees per day. Not sure how that worked.

Lines stretched and wound all over the park and logjams prevented thousands of attendees from catching their favorite acts or seeing them from a favorable spot. While the farthest stages were only about 1500 feet apart, the walk could easily take 20 minutes due to set times that caused mass exoduses from one stage to another. On night one, I had to wait over 90 minutes for a burger, eventually giving up my morals and bribing people in the front of another line to let me cut.

Putting the crowd issues aside, this festival proved that it is here to stay. With great support from the city of Philadelphia, Jay Z and Budweiser have created the most diverse festival I have seen and packed it with amazing acts from America and beyond.

On day one, Haim kicked things off early with a powerful set that easily proved how hard the young sisters can rock. Playing a short six songs, they made the best use of their time, wowing the crowd with the groove of "The Wire" and making their fans dance with "Forever".

Other highlights included an enormous singalong set from Imagine Dragons, and a grand welcome to America for Phoenix, one of the few foreign bands high up on the bill.

On the rap side of things, A$AP Rocky started things off, well, rocky. After arriving 20 minutes late into a 45 minute slot, he played a brief five tracks to an eager crowd leaving most wanting more. Later in the day, 2 Chainz and Public Enemy competed for the rap show of the day, with 2 Chainz winning over the younger half of the crowd with his over the top lyrics that have been heard in dozens of hits in the last year.

When Beyoncé took the stage at the close of day 1, it became clear that she ran the show. Queen B drew every single attendee to the main stage to see her recently redesigned Mrs. Carter Show. Even though her hubby decided to stay out of the spotlight and not make an appearance, the show was flawless and clearly demonstrated why so many millions of fans revere her. On the epicness scale, this was among the biggest productions I have ever seen, keeping 120,000 eyes focused on her for an hour-and-a-half of hits, dancing, and outfit changes.

Day two didn't go exactly as planned (for me at least). Trains carrying kids from the suburbs to the center of the city were so packed that they decided, without informing anyone, to not pick up people at every stop. Therefore, I walked into the show about two hours late, just in time to catch the end of Kendrick Lamar's set. He was joined by his fellow TDE artists Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q and had an immense crowd in the palm of his hand the whole time.

As every single Kendrick fan left at the same moment to see Miguel, I was stuck in the middle of it all, and was therefore unable to see Alunageorge. I decided to stick around the Freedom Stage anyway to see what GTA was all about. The Miami DJ's mantra is "Death to genres" and they follow that motto pretty strictly. With sets that could please pretty much every EDM fan out there, they definitely made a lot of fans at MIA.

The rest of the night was full of hits, from a lively set by the always-fun Macklemore & Ryan Lewis to back-to-back-to-back electro-punches from Feed Me, Nero, and Calvin Harris. Each DJ brought their own style to the table and provided the audience with a taste of the currently diverse EDM scene. Needless to say, there was something for everyone.

A bus issue unfortunately caused me to miss headliner Nine Inch Nails, putting the bookend on a travel-issue-filled weekend. Luckily Jay Z and his pals over at Budweiser put on a great show, one that couldn't easily be ruined by buses or trains.

Well done Jay. Just remember: more people don't necessarily make a better festival.